


The Forlorn Valentine

by bilsunderooks



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Epistolary, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 00:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11429073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bilsunderooks/pseuds/bilsunderooks
Summary: AU set post episode 84. During the year long timeskip, a drunken Percy writes to Vex'ahlia and Trinket.





	The Forlorn Valentine

**Author's Note:**

> Written around episode 84, I thought about doing a whole series of letters from Vex to Percy. But since real life has gotten in the way, other writing projects have started knocking on my door and the events in Critical Role have very much debunked and moved on from this epistolary angst fest, I thought I might just tidy then post this timestamped valentines fic. Here's to hoping the next few fics won't be so angsty when I get around to them.

My dearest Vex’ahlia and Trinket,

Time apart grows irritable. The days are lengthening, my nose aches from Whitestone’s recent pollen attack, and my heart has lost some of its determination.

Cassandra had me organise trade delegations with Kymal. They don’t know what they’re doing, they fluster and ponce around in silken promises and velvet hands, but I cannot blame them. Or I could. It was always easier to talk to you, without restraint or fear that I will offend, or cause that wretched line to appear on Cassandra’s forehead. If I didn’t fear the safety of my hands, I would have measured that line already and told you the exact figure, down to the decimal. So much of my life is in measurements now. I count in the mornings, afternoons, and even in my dreams. If you were here, you’d probably tell me I was talking in my sleep. It would not surprise me.

There’s something soothing about counting money. Or the people we have left in Whitestone. Or the seeds being planted in our new crop fields, one by one finding an earthy home to sink into. Or the letters arriving at my doorstep; from Keyleth, Vax, Pike, Grog, Allura and Kima, and Gilmore. There is still no word from Scanlan, I'm afraid. The days are numbered too; I have a wall of black marks made by my greasy fingers as Tary and I work on our projects. It’s hidden by the door, so Cassandra never sees it when she comes to drag me by the ear to tend to our orphanage construction. We still haven’t decided what to call it, so we’re counting on your return to help us narrow down our terribly long suggestions. All this counting; my head is stuffed with cottony numbers. All parchments might as well be the same.

It is good work here, I am still enjoying the tribulations of deconstruction and rebuilding Whitestone. My new gardening hobby, you might say, though sometimes I severely doubt my green thumbs. But all these numbers, all my counting? Only reminds me, at the end of the day, that all time comes to a close.

My certainty lies in the hope that my sister will release me from my responsibilities soon. If she ever will. If I ever want to leave her. I can’t let her down again. But all I can think about when I lie awake at night is seeing the sky again. The orange plum of Feywild’s twilight; the star bursts of Vasselheim’s cold streetlights; Emon’s skyline as we once knew it, burnt blue. I dream of endless horizons reflected in the eyes of our family. I dream of faces we have yet met, contours of cheeks and skin and mouths that we fluttered by in the past. They have lodged themselves into my brain as useless fantasies, and still I ache to know them. I ache for our lives as they once were. Does that make me a terrible brother?

When you get the time, please tell me about the people you meet. Every detail. I want to know them through your eyes. Let me count their faces in my mind so I can soak into them. Better yet? Let me count the words you would write to me. The amount of times you pause between sentences, and the things you never tell me that would still seep into the page. The lines at the corner where you touched the paper. Or even the kisses you press over the signature. Just give me something. It’s been over four months.

I trust Trinket is doing well? When you head back to Whitestone send me a note so I can have the kitchens prepare him all the salmon he desires. I have new armour for him too, it sits waiting in his room. I added blue ribbons to the sides, and Tary proves to be a deft hand with sewing. I think you and Trinket would really appreciate the tiny bears dancing around the edge. Vax assured me you would, when he came to visit last month. He looked healthy, flushed with purpose and whatever secret mission he disappeared to the next day. He also gave me a bouquet of marigolds, from Keyleth. I put them in your room in that green vase you’re so fond of. They have yet to wilt, and they seem to shine when I catch a glimpse of their reflection in the mirror. They must be waiting for you to get back to see them.  

This candlelight is burning my eyes. I can barely think around my stuffy nose and itchy throat. And I’m tired, dear Vex. Tired of whatever I’m expecting each day to bring. I can’t demand that the sun will shine brighter, or that the clocks will chime the midnight hour to mark yet another day spent. I can’t command the gate guard to tell me what I long to hear. And I can’t keep walking past your room to see if the flowers have died yet, if the gold petals have sputtered into shrivelled fists on the table.

While you remain away from me, however long you want, know that I am here. Stilted in speech, and shaking hands holding a pen as I try to stare past the candle and think of what to say to you. Try, in vain, to talk myself out of writing to you because I know you will not reply. We miss you. I miss you.

Please tell me you’re well. Just something, Vex’ahlia. I count the hours.

Yours,

Percy. 

* * *

 

Dearest,

Six months. Six months and I can finally pick up a pen.

I was wandering through the fields near the Ivyheart Thicket, and saw the daffodils had started to bloom in great yellow torrents. They sat fat, in clumps, in sparse smatterings by the streams, in wide sweeps over hills and down small valleys. Here and there, deer vanish.

Trinket loves it. He wriggles and sneezes and lopes gleefully through the meadows. He is so delightful, and has been wonderful company. His eyes always shine in the starlight-like flowers, and he won’t stop licking the yellow petals. He keeps grabbing the stems with his teeth and bringing them over to me in great clumps. They lie at my feet now and I’m trying to string them together so I can carry them around more easily. They glow against the parchment I have been saving to write to you. It was under the yellow light, and the sun’s filter, and my dirty hands touching the paper that I couldn’t ignore replying to your letters. So here you have it: my reply, my words in your capable and talented hands, finally addressing your letters.

Don’t worry, my love. I read them all. I kept them close with me for five months, every time one of my brother’s damn ravens found me and pecked my hand bloody until I took them. I honestly did not mean to ignore you.

I am not poetic. Letter writing is tiresome, and I have spent the better part of two months trying to think of a reply that didn’t sound like I was making excuses for my absence. I regret that. Time is so precious, and fleeting, and it’s only in the last few weeks that I feel like I’m wasting it out here, away from Whitestone. I do miss it, darling. I do.

I do. Funny word that. Both an acknowledgement and a promise. It spirals though; it spirals in my mind and has done for six months. I never intended to be away for so long. Ah, excuses. Trinket keeps glaring at me every time I make them, the words swallowed by deafening quiet forests. I am sleep addled, with nothing to do other than travelling and seeing the world (and it is a magnificent one but again I am not poetic enough to describe it), and all I have seen cannot be so easily conveyed in a letter. I would rather tell you in person. I would rather fill your workshop with my whispers, along the shell of your ear, while touching your chest and stroking your cock.

It’s a very nice one after all.

I just need to fill the space of my absence with my words. I didn’t want to tease you with a ghostly aftermath, or tell you of how mundane travelling has grown. It has lost its sparkle, because all of you aren’t with me. But still, that doesn’t excuse my silence.

I will come back soon, and though you may be hesitant in welcoming me back (which of course I would not blame you for) know that it was always my intention to come back. I always fulfill my promises. I do. I do.

You occupy my mind. Everyday.

I have found myself questioning even my own absence. At first I thought time apart was for the best. Things got too clouded and muddled in my mind, and with Scanlan leaving, I just needed to know my place in the world again. Everyone splitting up? Was hard. And while I know I had responsibilities to Whitestone, to my brother, to you, the thought of being confined in Whitestone waiting for everyone to return was torture. I did not want to start my life at Whitestone thinking it as a chore, or something I had to do. That wouldn’t have been fair. That wouldn’t have been fair to you or my new home.

About three months in I took an arrow to the shoulder. I healed fine, there’s barely a scar and it was more of a nuisance than anything permanent. Cure wounds was a wonder, but thanks to a series of disastrous events, we were snowed in a dreadfully empty cave. I had to stay in one spot, and it was as torturous as you’d imagine. I was bored, Trinket barely handled my bad mood and was just as irritable, and I was forced to think about a lot of things. I read half of your letters and didn’t read the second half until a month ago, where the load had piled up again. I’m not ashamed to say that I shed tears over a few of them. I did not mean to hurt you, you must know that. I despise how sad you are in these letters. It seemed to soak into each parchment you sent to me, and that cave was filled with your and my blue misery. I have missed you too. I’ve missed you so much I ache constantly. It was all I could do to ignore it some days.

That’s the thing about forgiveness. As always, forgiving yourself must come first, and as always that’s the most difficult thing to do. And I really thought this time to myself was time to forgive some things about myself, so I could move forward. And you have such faith in me. Have I ever told you how much I love you for that? I do. You have such faith even despite all the things that have happened to you. You’re wonderful, darling. You faith came with me, even as the fingers shaped bruises on my hips faded, until the moment when I decided that forgiveness was reached, and I was ready to start a new adventure with Vox Machina again.

With you. Let’s go on an adventure together, my love.

So I write this to you, all these thoughts on paper, with the knowledge that by the time this reaches you? You will have it in your hands. You will be able to count all the smudges on it, and know they’re kisses from me, grease from my nose, and dirt from Trinket’s paw. You will be able to see proof that I am coming back. I was always coming back. I have forgiven myself enough to accept that inevitability.

Who knows. I might be back even before that. I might surprise you once again. And then again. And for the rest of our lives, as surely you have surprised me. And when I get back, I will ask you something I’ve been trying to ignore for a while now. This letter is to prepare you for a surprise, and knowing you, you will have read between the lines and understood me even before I have asked you the question. My answer is here, in the margins, in the daffodils, in the walls of Whitestone and in the sheets in our bed where I last left it. Even in the woods where you first kissed me, the answer was there.

Forgive me. I was scared. I don’t admit that a lot, but I can and do with you. Thank you for waiting for me, for having faith in me after all this time.

I got a bit sidetracked while I was exploring my head and heart, and now I’m ready to come home, darling. With a bunch of daffodils for our room, provided they stay alive on the trip back.

Until then, give my regards to Cassandra, to Tary, and to the others if they’re back yet. And be prepared to free up your day for when I get back, we have a lot to catch up on, and I will want you naked the entire time.

All our love,

Vex’ahlia and Trinket. 

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out at [my Tumblr](http://bilsunderooks.tumblr.com) if you want to see the writing inspiration tag and my other works, which are usually posted in both Tumblr and Ao3.


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